Kitchenbowl Rising to Top Food App Ranks

Kitchenbowl, a mobile phone app that lets users post photographs and food recipes, has gained rapid popularity for its user-friendly experience. Its look is simple and clean, with a white background, almost like a version of Instagram except the images are all professional-looking photographs of food.

"We really want to facilitate the world through cooking," says Ryan Waliany, who created the app with his wife, Serena Wu. The app launched on November 22nd and in short time amassed hundreds of recipes and users in more than 500 cities around the world. On December 4, Kitchenbowl ranked as the No. 1 "Food & Drink" slot by
Apple for the holiday seasons under "Recipes & Chefs." Waliany says that the app quickly attracted users in Spain, Brazil and India.

Kitchenbowl interface

Waliany and his wife wanted to start cooking more healthful meals for themselves after his father suffered a stroke. They tried teaching themselves through several cookbooks, blogs and websites, but they could not find the right format. They eventually found a blog that used high quality images for each step of a recipe along with animated GIFs for technique. "I was able to make croissants when I had never really cooked before," Waliany says.

Homemade Omelette by Michelle Yam

Inspired, Waliany and Wu, who both have a history in tech start-ups and consulting, wanted to design an app that could easily teach users how to cook but also foster a worldwide community. Waliany imagines users learning authentic recipes like how "someone in France makes croissants or Japan makes ramen." Kitchenbowl got a big boost in popularity when it partnered with renowned food photographer Michelle Yam, who has 48,000 Instagram followers.

Kitchenbowl promotes enterprising home cooks and professional chefs. The more followers a user gains, the more likely it is to become a featured recipe on the app. With so many people posting photos of food, this platform gives wannabes a chance to perhaps turn their hobbies into something more professional. The app features recipes in English, but Waliany envisions a day when users worldwide can download recipes into a language of their preference.

I write about the cool stuff athletes, chefs and entrepreneurs are into--so that we can act like we're one of them. I've gotten sunburned in the Yankee Stadium bleachers waiting for an Alex Rodriguez home run, shaken my backside at an elderly dance team tryout for the WNBA'...